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It is right to view the Christian life as a life of continual repentance; always needing to turn from our sin and turn back to Christ.  Another way of saying this would be to say that the most healthy state of a Christian is to be always empty of self and constantly depending on the Lord's supply.  Praise God he does supply!

Romans 5:1-5 says,

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."


An illustration I have heard used with this passage exhorts considering ourselves as a sponge.  Before knowing Christ, we are a sponge filled with rank dirty water (sin, selfishness, et c.).  The sponge may look clean just sitting on the counter, but when some pressure is applied (squeezed), the rank dirty water oozes out to show what was actually on the inside (in our heart).

Having been justified through faith in Jesus Christ, through his forgiveness of our sin and imputing of his righteousness, he has removed the rank dirty water.  And as this passage says, by grace God's love has been poured into us through the Holy Spirit.  Our hearts soak up the love of God.  Now when we are squeezed (pressures, trials, temptations), it is God's love that bleeds out.  Only what has been put into the sponge can come out.  Be careful what is being poured into your heart...

Unfortunately, because our sin nature remains, we still allow rank dirty water to be poured into us; and when we confront difficult people, difficult circumstances or temptations in life, this is evidenced.  Therefore, the Christian life being a life of continual repentance.  The Holy Spirit sanctifies us through these means and we must participate with him in it.  We must participate in it with one another.

Prayer, then, teaches us our unworthiness and is a confession of human emptiness.  It is a means (along with God's Word and God's people) by which God graciously pours his love into our hearts.  So that when we then go out, his love can pour out to others from us.

Meet with one another to pray.  Rightly acknowledge/confess your neediness/unworthiness/emptiness, and together seek the Father to fill you with his love.  Rejoice in the grace in which we stand; rejoice in the hope of the glory of God; rejoice in your sufferings that produce in you what God intends.